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Analysis of a Scholarly Scientific Paper and its Accommodation
Context: Alzheimer's disease is a disease that has no cure and is the most common form of dementia. Generally Alzheimer's occurs in people over sixty-five years old, but early-onset Alzheimer's can occur in much younger people. Symptoms of Alzheimer's disease include memory loss and a loss of bodily functions which worsens with age and eventually causes death. The goal of the Alzheimer's Association is to find a cure for the disease and until then they want to increase awareness of Alzheimer's and improve care and support for everyone affected by the disease. To do this the Alzheimer's Association releases an annual report detailing the facts and statistics about Alzheimer's in hopes that it leads to increased awareness, improved support of those affected by the disease, and hopefully a cure. On March 19, 2014 the Alzheimer's Association released its annual report that included a comprehensive compilation of national statistics and information on Alzheimer's disease and related dementia’s in order to increase awareness of the disease and how it affects the world. After the report was published NBC News ran a story on the findings from that report summarizing its main points and relaying it back to its readers in everyday language so that those not involved in the scientific community could learn about the recent findings. Analysis: Similarities: The report from the Alzheimer's Association and the news report from NBC are similar in that they both have the same topic, they both are trying to inform their audience, and they are both very direct in their approach. Both the report from the Alzheimer's Association and the report from NBC News discuss the effects Alzheimer's has on those affected by the disease, whether they themselves have Alzheimer's or whether they care for someone with Alzheimer's. The reason behind this is that the news report was in direct response to the publication of the study, therefore the one could not exist without the other. Another way that the two reports are similar is that they have the common goal of informing their audience. The report from the Alzheimer's Association is meant to inform the scientific community and those who deal with Alzheimer's disease (care takers) about the recent findings of their studies and how that information may help lead to earlier diagnosis and better treatment of the disease. On the other hand the news report was made to inform a general audience about the report from the Alzheimer's Association and what that study had shown. The understand the reasons behind why both reports share a goal of informing their audience it is important to understand what fields they belong to. The Alzheimer's Association's report was made by scientists who had conducted research and wanted to share their findings in a report because that is how the scientific community communicates. Likewise the journalistic community wants to inform their readers because that entire field is centered on the sharing of information. The fact that the goal of both reports is to communicate and share information means that the sharing of information is something valued by both of their fields. Another thing that the reports have in common is that they are both direct in their approach. In the report from the Alzheimer's Association they present their facts, statistics, and arguments almost immediately and do not put any unnecessary information in the report. Similarly the news report states their information quickly and briefly, and also stays true to their topic. This reveals that the fields of science and journalism have a common goal in getting to the point in their writing and value directness because it is important to them, although in different ways. Differences: While the two reports are similar in some ways, they are also very different in the ways they are written, who their audience is, and the content included in them. The report from the Alzheimer's Association is a large paper over the findings of a study done over how Alzheimer's affects people who have the disease and those who care for someone with the disease. The article uses large paragraphs and scientific language to legitimize the report because in the scientific community it is important for the writer to get their point across by being as specific and accurate as possible. In addition the report from the Alzheimer's Association uses graphs and tables to display their data which is common in scientific writing because it is efficient and easy to read. In contrast the NBC News report was done over the report from the Alzheimer's Association and uses its findings as the basis for its story. Also the news report writes short paragraphs that often only have a one or two sentences in them and uses everyday language to describe the findings of the report from the Alzheimer's Association so that readers won't become bored and will continue reading the article. Unlike the Alzheimer's report the NBC News report uses pictures and videos to help tell their story because that is common in the field of journalism and it also helps to keep the audience interested in what the writer is saying. From these differences we can conclude that what each side is catering to a different intended audience and therefore will value different things. The audience of the scientific report is other scientists because that is who will be reading their report and because of this they write in a way that is normal to the scientific community, such as having long paragraphs with scientific language and graphs to directly get their point across. On the other hand the NBC News report is catering to a more general audience so they have to make sure everyone who reads the article will be able to understand it and therefore chose to write in short paragraphs with nonscientific language accompanied by pictures and videos so that people will stay interested in the story. The way that the writers cater to their audience show the vast difference in what is valued in each field, in journalism keeping the readers interested is what is important so they make their articles easy to read and provide things such as pictures and videos to entertain their readers, while in the scientific community it is much more important to get their information across by being very specific and by using efficient means of displaying data through tables and graphs. Another way that the articles varied was in the content of the papers. In the scholarly paper the writers only cared about telling the results of their study, while the popular source added a story about an elderly man who has Alzheimer's and his wife who takes care of him. The reason that the two reports differ this way is that the scientific report didn't have any need for a story that wasn't directly related to their findings, as opposed to the news report which added the story in order to add an emotional appeal to the report so that readers would find it more relatable and want to read it. The choice of the writers to include or not include the story reflects the values of each of the discourse communities and provides a better idea of what each community wants in their literature. For instance, the choice of the writer from the news report to include the story of the elderly couple dealing with Alzheimer's shows that journalist value entertaining their audience and keeping them interested in the article. On the other hand the choice of writers of the report from the Alzheimer's Association reveals that the scientific community values objectivity above the entertainment of their audience and don't necessarily care about the struggle of the individual rather they care about the problem as a whole. Advice: When it comes to writing any paper it is important to keep your audience in mind and for the scientific community your audience is other scientists. Therefore in your papers you should use scientific language because it proves that you know what you are talking about and gives you credibility and you should be direct and objective because those are the things valued by the scientific community. Using scientific language in science papers is very important because not only does it give your paper credibility by demonstrating your knowledge of the subject, but it also helps to make your paper more direct by leaving no room for doubt as to what you are talking about. Another thing that is important in science papers is being direct, and by being direct I mean you need to state what your paper is about quickly and that it isn't necessary to develop an elaborate introduction of your paper; Rather it would be better to state thing such as what the problem or issue is, why it is a problem, and what your plan is to fix it. Lastly, your paper should be very objective, which is to say that everything in your paper should be oriented toward one goal. This is very important because in the scientific community if your paper strays from its topic it is considered unprofessional and isn't taken seriously. Scientist want their literature to be objective because it helps to hide the fact that the experiment or study was done by humans who are capable of making mistakes. However, if the paper is objective it takes away the human component of the paper and makes it seem that everything was done by someone incapable of making mistakes, which is what scientists want.